


Cry No More

by SylvanFreckles



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Destiel - Freeform, Fix-It, M/M, Supernatural series finale, it's canon now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:48:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27649786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylvanFreckles/pseuds/SylvanFreckles
Summary: It was over. It was done. He was at peace. For thirty seconds.(A little cathartic, fix-it fic after the series finale)
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 5
Kudos: 105





	Cry No More

**Author's Note:**

> I won't go in to the issues I had with the series finale (that's what my tumblr is for). This is a cathartic little fix-it, just a way to make our boys happy for once.

_* Thirty Seconds Later *_

Dean sucked in a breath and coughed it back out, the lights overheard whirling in crazy patterns.

“Dean? Hey, hey, you're okay.”

There was a hand on his face and another under his head. A shape above him, just a shadow to his dazzled eyes but still achingly familiar. “Sa...Sammy?” he croaked, closing his eyes to the wheeling shadows.

“Yeah,” Sam's voice broke. “He's waking up, it worked.”

Dean swatted at his brother's hands. Sam somehow understood his brother's jerky movements and gently rolled him onto his side, still cradling his head. Dean sucked in another deep breath and coughed it out, still feeling the ache deep in his chest where the rebar had pierced his lung.

He was dead. He'd been dead...he'd been in heaven, seen glimpses of Sammy's life, reunited with him at the end. “D'you do?” he mumbled. Not as eloquent as he'd hoped, but Sam was well-versed in Concussed Winchester.

Sam's hand had slid down to Dean's back to rub at the sore muscles there. “It wasn't me. Dean...open you eyes, man.”

Nope. Out there was the crazy lights and the world spinning under him and the life he'd thought he'd left behind. Out there was the aching, cavernous emptiness of the people he'd lost, without even Bobby and heaven and everything else to comfort him. Out there it was just the two of them against the world.

God. He'd finally had some peace.

“Please?” Sam's voice was cracking. “Just...open your eyes, man. He's unconscious.”

What the hell?

Dean slowly cracked his eyes back open, blinking through the dizzying spin of the universe. None of his other resurrections had felt like this...well, except the original pulling-out-of-hell thing. But there wasn't someone to...to...grip him tight and drag him from paradise, or whatever.

The kaleidoscoping world around him slowly started resolving into familiar shapes and colors. There was tan—an awful lot of tan. Like Sam had dragged the old canvas drop cloth out of the Impala's trunk and just kind of...tossed it on the ground. There was something else...something closer to his face.

Smaller items were easier to focus on, so Dean squinted his eyes nearly closed and focused on the thing right in front of him. It was a hand, he realized. The amorphous tan shape was a person, lying crumpled on the ground next to Dean, one hand reaching out for him.

No.

He hadn't made it to heaven. This was hell.

Dean managed to wrest a hand up to cover his eyes. No, no, no...this wasn't fair. He hadn't even really processed the loss...after Cas had finally said out loud this thing they'd been dancing around for years, only to get himself sucked into the Empty along with Billie.

He'd gone out swinging, saving a couple of no-name kids in nowhere, Ohio, the rebar in his back only half of the ache of the recent loss. Only to be brought back to this...this torment of what he could never have.

“Come on, man,” Sam was saying, one hand still rubbing back and forth across Dean's tight shoulders. “It's okay. It's real.”

He pulled his hand away and stared, his vision still blurred from tears or recent trauma.

It was Cas. Just like he'd seen him before the Empty snatched him—trench coat, hair teased out just like Charlie taught him, same old skinny blue tie he'd never really given up.

Maybe...maybe he could at least have a good-bye this time.

Dean reached out, slowly, his fingers barely brushing the back of Cas's hand. It was warmer than he remembered, or else he was cold as well as numb. He gently, slowly, took Cas's hand in his, squeezing the fingers, tears filling his eyes.

There was so much unsaid. This wasn't fair. If it had to be hell, couldn't they have brought back Alistair? Azazel? Some enemy of the past, instead of this...this...pantomime of what he couldn't have?

Cas's fingers twitched.

“He's waking up.” Sam blew out a breath and pulled away from Dean, moving over to Cas's body. “Cas? Can you hear me?”

Dean instantly felt colder without his brother's presence, but he watched as Sam gently rolled Cas over into the recovery position without pulling his hand away from Dean's. “Sammy?”

“He just appeared,” Sam tried to explain. There were tears in his eyes and his voice was cracking, like he'd been crying himself out recently. “There was this...this ripping sound. Everything went cold for a second and he was just—there. He brought you back, Dean.”

His body was finally settling down, so Dean eased himself up on his elbow—still holding Cas's hand—and leaned in to look closer. “He's bleeding.” There was blood on his neck and the front of his shirt—not much but it was there. That wasn't right. If this was hell...Cas would be one or the other, dead or alive, either the thing Dean could never have or the thing he'd lost forever.

“He had to cut his grace out,” Sam whispered. “It was the only...the only thing that could save you. You needed all of it.”

“No,” Dean growled, pulling himself up so he could kneel over Cas. “No, no, that can't...he can't...dammit, Sammy, I told you not to bring me back!”

“I didn't have a choice!” Sam snapped. A tear leaked out of his eye to trail down his cheek and he rubbed his face against his shoulder impatiently. “I couldn't stop him. I didn't _want_ to stop him. He's...he's Cas, Dean. If I couldn't stay with you...”

Sam swallowed and looked away. Dean understood. He would give anything to save the people he loved—though he never liked it when someone he cared about had to make some kind of big sacrifice for him. “He looks like shit,” he observed. Now that he could see clearly, there were bruises and abrasions all over Cas's face and neck—not just the cut from removing his grace.

“He's home now,” Sam said. He pulled away enough to scrub both hands over his face. “He's always belonged with us.”

Cas shifted beneath Dean's hand. He leaned down closer. “Cas? Cas, you hear me?”

There was movement, a shift of the head, then a set of familiar eyes was peering up at him from a face so lined with exhaustion it couldn't be anything but human. “Hello...Dean.”

Dean tried to laugh, but it came out half-strangled in a sob as he pulled Cas up into his arms and buried his face in the other man's shoulder. He inhaled deeply, letting the familiar scent of earth and ozone wash over him and drive away the deep, aching loss that had settled beneath his sternum since Cas had been taken away.

There was so much he needed to say. Things he'd never put into words, everything Cas had done and meant and changed for him. He could barely breathe through the emotions—the last echoes of grief, the peace of heaven, losing Sam, finding this one thing...the one thing he could never have.

His voice was broken, barely above a whisper, but he would have shouted it if he could have.

Hell. He'd shout it anyway...as soon as he stopped blubbering like a girl.

“You gotta know, man...Cas...I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please be gentle. This has been rough on a lot of people.


End file.
